1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to an inkjet printer, and more particularly to, an apparatus and method of protecting an inkjet printer head that prevents a heater from being damaged due to an abnormal operation of a printer.
2. Description of the Related Art
A thermal inkjet printer head, which includes a nozzle, a heater, and an ink chamber disposed above each heater, instantly heats each heater, ejects ink droplets, and forms an image.
Energy applied to a heater is calculated as voltage (V)*current (A)*fire pulse width. When energy is applied to the heater over a predetermined period of time, ink droplets are ejected from a nozzle. However, if excessively high energy is applied to the heater, the heater electrically burns out, and a nozzle fails to print an image, which causes a white line in the image. Such a white line is indicative of a hardware failure and the heater can not be recovered. Thus, when numerous amounts of nozzles fail, thereby causing the white lines, replacement of the inkjet printer head is required.
Therefore, a protection circuit is needed to prevent energy from being excessively applied to the heater so that a head chip is not damaged